Do you miss her?
by Rowan Rose
Summary: Katara hears crying in the middle of the night and goes to investigate only to find the last thing she expected. Really OOC! Not a Zutara fic! Before southern Raiders while Katara hates him!


**Rowan here saying have fun inside and enjoy my first Avatar fic!**

_**Disclaimer: I disclaim!**_

Do you miss her?

Katara was walking to bed after having stayed up later than the others to clean the dishes up from dinner. She was going down the hall when she heard muffled sobs, thinking they were Aang's since she often found him crying over the death of Gyatso and his people. She cracked his door open to find him sound asleep snoring like there's no tomorrow. She then checked Sokka's room and found him seemingly trying to outmatch the little air bender's snores to no avail. She peeked into the blind earth bender's room only to find her also asleep. She was beginning to think she had imagined the crying when she heard it again this time she could tell it came from the end of the hall. But that was Zuko's room and he certainly wouldn't be crying. She peeked in and sure enough the fire nation prince was sobbing quietly to himself.

"Zuko, are you ok?" she asked. She had never seen this side to Zuko. He was always the banished prince who wanted them dead. She never thought he would have a soft side.

"No, not really" he said as he sat up and wiped his eyes.

"Would you like to tell me about it" she asked "It might help."

"Do you ever, you know…miss her?" he asked.

"Miss who?" she asked completely confused.

"Your mother." he said as another tear slipped down his scarred cheek. He bowed his head and let his bangs cover his eyes.

"Oh. This is what this is about." she said "Yes. I miss my mother. You see I was really young when she was taken from me. There was a fire nation raid. They had come for me, the last water bender of the southern water tribe, and they were going to kill me. They asked my mother who the last water bender was and she claimed it was herself to save me. When I came back with our dad it was too late. He had murdered my mother." she said tears now running down her cheeks also. "You never told me what happened to your mother." she said while wiping her eyes.

"My mother, like yours, was taken away from me because she was saving my life when I was 7. My uncle was older of the two sons and so he was the original heir to the throne, but while he was in the midst of conquering Ba Sing Se, Lu Tin, my cousin, and Uncle's only son died in battle. Uncle was devastated and gave up his siege of the great city. My father went before fire lord Azulon and requested that he be made the next fire lord in place of Uncle since he had given up the siege therefore showing great weakness, and sice Uncle had no heir to take his place. Azulon was furious and commanded that Ozai must feel the pain of losing a first born son since he could not respect someone who had and my father was commanded to kill me, by my grandfather" at this Katara gasped.

"But that's horrible. Who would command the death of their own grandson." she said.

"That is my family for you…well most of it. Anyway, my mother found out and tried to reason with my father, but he would have none of it, so she proposed a plan to kill Azulon and make Ozai the fire lord to save my life, but because of her treacherous actions my father had her banished at the promise he would not harm me, a promise broken six years later." he said putting a hand to his scar.

"How was it broken?" she asked not knowing the story.

"Well, I was 13 and there was a war meeting. I wanted to go in and listen so I could prepare to become a great fire lord. Uncle tried to stop me from going in but I was set on going in. He let me in after I promised him I would not speak out. During the meeting an old general devised a plan that involved sending young untrained soldiers in as bait against a battalion of earth benders so the army could ambush them from behind, effectively killing the inexperienced soldiers. I told him that he couldn't betray those soldiers like that, but my father was furious and told me I had disrespected him and would have to fight in an Agni Kai or fire duel. The day of the duel I turned around to find the old general was not the one I would have to duel."

"Who was it?" Katara asked after Zuko paused.

"My father." Katara's eyes widened. "It was the general's plan I had spoken out against but since I had done it in my father's war room it was him I had disrespected."

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I dropped to my knees crying, and begged for forgiveness, saying I only had the fire nation's best interest at heart. He told me I must learn respect and suffering would be my teacher. And then he placed his hand over my face and burned me. Then he said by refusing to fight I had shown great weakness and was banished, the only way to return home with my honor was to capture the Avatar."

"Oh so that is why you chased us." she then realized that Zuko although acted as an adult was still just a child. He was only a sixteen year old boy who was striving to get his father's approval. "I want you to know that I forgive you, for everything." she said as she wrapped him up in a big hug.

"Thanks that means a lot coming from you." he said.

As Katara got up to leave she thought about how each of them has their own tragic story and that's what brings them together.


End file.
